20 questions
by Areya Wiles
Summary: The Titans team up with Jump City Police to help catch the killer of a young girl. BBxRae, RobxStar


**A/N**: Sooo, *hides behind computer screen* just a little preemptive warning: this is my first fic.. and its a little screwy, and everybody might be a little OOC (not to the point of golly gee rae-ing though, don't worry wicka) anyway ON WITH THE STORY!!

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"How about... 20 questions?"

"20 questions?" he asked, unsure.

"Yeah, 20 questions."

"Um?"

"You've never played 20 questions?" she asked while he watched something in the backseat became engulfed in black energy in the rear view mirror, until she reigned in her faint shock. "You seriously are disturbed."

"Am _not_."

"Are too."

"I am not," his eyes were still on the road as they joked.

"Are freaking too," Raven laughed.

" 'Are freaking too' says the half breed demon," he scoffed.

"And this 'insult'," she used her fingers to form quotations around the word insult, "is coming from the little green freak with pointed ears, and a lot of the time a tail too." Beast Boy's once impish smirk faded into an adorable pout, his eyes taking on their puppy dog innocence and charm. Raven laughed again, being careful not to destroy any of their surroundings.

"You still can't resist the face, no one can resist the face," Beast Boy said, though his natural face was the one smiling back at Raven while she leaned back in her seat and looked out at the road in front of her.

"Hey Beast Boy?" she said, with mock sweetness ever present in her voice.

"Yeah," he asked in response, her tone intriguing him.

"The light turned green forever ago.." she watched him turn to look at the light, and finding her to be right, blushed a bit as he stepped on the gas, and checked the rear view mirror, which luckily reflected nothing but the long expanse of road they'd been traveling down.

"So explain 20 questions to me Rae," he coaxed smoothly, he never thought he'd see the day when Raven would play games to pass the time, let alone laugh, even if it wasn't exactly freely, she was laughing.

"Basically, someone picks an object, and then, keeping it a secret, the other person asks 20 different questions to figure out what it is. For example, is it living? Yes. Is it bigger than a toaster oven? Some of the time. Is it tan. No. Is it green. Yes. Is it annoying? Again, yes. Then after more questions, though I can't see why you would need anymore, Is it Garfield Logan, our very own Beast Boy? Yes. And then the games over.." Raven smiled, satisfied with her explanation, and glared at Beast Boy who was chuckling. "Maybe when I wake up we can play.." she mused, seeing him nod his head out of the corner of her eye before she fumbled with the passenger seat, leaned it back, and curled up on her side to face him, and then promptly fell asleep.

+Raven's Point of View+

_I looked out the window into the even darker, dismal black of night. Something was happening. Not just on the streets of Jump City, but everywhere. Usually I was comforted by the darkness in the dead of night, but not tonight. There was something far more sinister and looming about tonight that turned my veins to ice. I waited anxious and impatient for the sun, hoping maybe it would bring relief. I wrung my fingers and walked over to the edge of my bed and sat gently on the violet comforter and black satin sheets, staring out into the night. _

_A shrill, blood curdling scream pierced the night air. A scream of pure terror. My skin crawled, and a shiver ran down my spine as I jumped from my bed and ran to the window. I pressed my hands to the glass, my eyes sweeping over the streets of Jump City that were visible from my window and then came a violent image in my head. A young girl, maybe 15, lay dead in a puddle of blood, in a beautiful white dress. Her pale colorless face frozen in an expression of horror. I stumbled back from my window out of breath and slightly petrified. I sprinted clumsily to my door, knocking things to the ground as I went, partially because I couldn't get a grip on my powers. I tried to yell to my team, but my throat was dry, and I couldn't make a sound over the lump in my throat. I jumped out of my skin when the tower alarm went off. It was so loud my head began pounding. I ran down the stairs hunched forward, trying to hold my head in my hands, and stumbled into the loudest room yet. The room that was also filled with the four other titans, who were all at full alert._

_"TITANS TROUBLE," there was anxiousness in Robin's voice, and his body was tensed with it. _

_"There's something weird about this whole night," Cyborg's voice held suspicion and fear, and his face was drawn with uncertainty. "Rob, what's going on?"_

_"I.. I don't know. There's trouble in the city, but the Tower's security system is going off too, triggered from a window near Raven's room, it looks like someone was trying to get in.." Robin resisted the urge to slam his fist on the desk in front of him as he inspected the monitors. His team wasn't safe and neither was the city. They couldn't just abandon the tower and run off into the city if someone was trying to get in, but how could he justify wasting time worrying about a building while peoples' lives could be in danger?_

_"WAIT!" Starfire's cry momentarily stopped Robin's train of thought that was evident in his expression and everyone looked at her. "Where is Raven?!" Then eyes wide, the team turned, finally seeing me behind them, taking in the strange sight of me clutching my head, my mouth open, but not a sound escaping my lips, and my vision blurred with tears. "Friend Raven!" Star and Beast Boy were closest to me, and therefore the first ones to reach me, with Robin and Cyborg at their heels, and I swayed back and forth as they ran at me until someone caught me, a green hand gripping my waist tightly, with my arm around a thin strong framed pair of shoulders that were covered in fiery orange hair._

_"She's dead," I murmured._

_"What?" Beast Boy's eyes were wide with shock, his grip on me tightened as he stared. _

_"What's going on? Raven, who's dead?" Robin pushed for details, already in hero mode, ready to fight and protect. I heard the anxiousness in his voice, the intensity, but I couldn't find the nerve to answer, so I stared into Starfire's eyes instead, pleading for her help, for her voice._

_Then Cyborg pushed his way between Robin, Beast Boy, and Star until he was directly in front of me, he picked me up and carried me to the couch. "Raven," his voice was fearful, but it held steady as he spoke to me slowly, asking if I was OK. Looking at monitors in his arms, reading my vitals on them, seeming to calm down by the second, whatever he read on his monitors satisfied him. _

_I swallowed the lump in my throat,and while the tears spilled over, I nodded confirming that his monitors were right, I was OK. I tried to find my voice. "She's dead," I heard myself say again, but this time my voice was louder, stronger, but scratchy. Star, being the understanding angel that she is, glided over to me with a glass of water, which I gulped gratefully. With every passing second, my heart beat faster and I was becoming more and more frantic. Acknowledging my fear, I regained my composure and realized that some of the floating objects in the room fell to the floor, no longer engulfed in my darkness. "We have to find her," I stammered, "she's somewhere in the streets of the city, in a white dress.. and a puddle of blood, she's young. Too young; and now she's dead. I heard her scream, and then I saw her, in my head.. I still see her." I paused, swallowing against the lump in my throat that was threatening to send me into hysterics again. _

_"The police are probably already there," Robin said. I turned to look at him, as did Cy, Beast Boy and Star. He was standing off, kind of at a distance, his back to us, deep in thought. I stood as he slammed his fist on something, both of us suddenly fueled by anger. _

_My anger over powered my fear, though fear was still ever present in the eyes of the rest of the team, and I was sure, in mine as well. I lifted the hood of my blue cape over my head, "We have to find her," my voice was finally strong again, and strength was returning to my body as well, and it felt good as my veins turned from ice to fire._

_From where he was standing now, near the monitors again, Robin turned to face us, "I was right, the police are already on the scene, but they're still requesting back up, superheroes included. But we should split up. The tower's security system was triggered a bit after the signal in the city, someone was trying to get into the tower near Raven's room," he looked piercingly into my eyes through that damned mask and I wondered if his eyes held as much fear as the rest of ours while he said, "either someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time or someone knows what you saw Raven."_

_Starfire gasped and covered her mouth, and I staggered back until I felt an arm slipped tightly around my waist, a green hand was on my hip, supporting me once again.. I'll remember to thank Beast Boy later I told myself._

_"He's right we have to split up. The girls should get away from the tower since whoever this idiot is, was trying to get in near their rooms, they can go to the scene in the city.. but Rob should go too, you're the best at talking to the police, and superheroes or not they shouldn't be at the crime scene where a young girl was just killed alone." There was a false sense of calm in Cy's voice because like everyone else, he was putting up the strong, fearless facade by distracting himself with calculating strategies, and checking monitors already. He was trying to be strong for the team, we all were. "Beast Boy and I can reset the tower's security system and run a thorough inside and outside check for whatever tripped the alarms, so that the tower's safe to return to when you're done in the city. If we finish quick enough, we'll catch up with you guys there, so keep an eye on your communicators." _

_Robin nodded once, and then his serious voice ordered the same command from when the team was young, "TITANS, GO!" And Star and I followed close behind him as we all sprinted out into the dark night. _

_With Robin following on his R-cycle on the streets beneath us, Star and I flew above the city in search of the scene of the girl that still remained in my head. All of the sudden Star took a sharp turn to her right in the air._

_"I hear the sirens, and see the flashing lights of the Police vehicles," she pointed towards said sirens and lights, not bothering to mask the fear in her voice, making it sound small and weak. I looked behind us on the ground to make sure that Robin had seen the direction in which Star pointed, only to find that he was already turning onto a street that lead in that direction. And I took off after Star again realizing that Robin already had the coordinates from the back up call from the Police, we were the one's who didn't know where we were going. The sirens grew louder as we got closer and closer, and my heart began to pick up speed as the volume of the sirens climbed. Then, when we reached the ground at the scene, Robin arriving right after us, I could smell the horrid metallic scent of blood. Robin could smell it too, I could see that much from the look on his face as he pulled off his helmet and placed it on his bike, and Starfire held her hand over her mouth and nose like a mask, trying to filter the smell as she inhaled. _

_Once again, following closely at Robin's heels as he breezed by us, Star and I exchanged a quick glance. The fear was emanating from our eyes, and we both looked away, working to gain our composure._

_"Chief," Robin nodded to the head of police._

_"Good to see you Robin, and your team as well," he acknowledged, but then followed with,"Er, where's the rest of the team?" easily noting that we were short a cyborg and changling when he saw only Star and I flanking Robin._

_"We had a security issue at the tower after the incident here. We think that there might be a slight chance of a connection between the two and in any case Cyborg and Beast Boy are checking it out," Robin informed the chief. "What happened here?" Robin's nerves were no longer evident in his voice or stance, I realized as I watched him. _

_"We're not positive yet, keep me informed about the security breech, if there is a connection, I'll need to know, and send a team of my own to check it out, in fact Robin, I should probably do so anyway.. I hope you don't mind." The chief responded and turned, walking towards the commotion of people and flashing lights. We followed him, under the yellow tape, weaving between people until she was laying right at our feet._

_Starfire gasped and turned into Robin, burying her face into his chest and shoulder. All at once my stomach dropped and I just wanted to leave this to the police. It was all my fault Star had to see this, we were still new to this kind of stuff, these kinds of villains and criminals, the sick and twisted ones, as opposed to the goofy world domination interested ones that we faced in our younger years. And yet somehow even at a time like this, underneath all the guilt I felt about dragging Star into this mess tonight, I was jealous of her. I wished I had someone to turn to, to hide behind, but when I looked around and so no one I could run to, I looked back down to the lifeless body and turned to the chief, out of curiosity, and to keep from hurling. _

_As if reading my thoughts he blurted out, "We think she was raped, and then murdered." It seemed like everything went silent as we all looked at the body again. It was exactly the same image I had seen in my mind before, though now I could see it all in even greater, gory detail. There were cuts and bruises already formed on her arms and legs that looked like they were from a recent, very violent struggle, and there were hand marks around her neck._

_"If she was strangled," I thought aloud while I looked intently at her bruised neck, "then why is she laying in a puddle of blood?"_

_"We've already examined that part of the puzzle," the chief said, the distaste clear in his voice, he obviously didn't like puzzles, "This is definitely all her blood, aside from the scrapes and bruising, she was shot in both of her thighs, both shoulder blades, center of the back, and back of the head. And," the chief looked utterly disgusted at the point, and very sad to be the bearer of bad news about this girl, "her fingertips have been dipped in an acid, or some corrosive substance.. possibly meaning that she put up a fight, and there was a chance of her having her killer's skin under her nails. That's a really cautious measure though, and would suggest that the murderer had a lot of time.. and it's not to make her unidentifiable.. we could easily use a photo ID or dental records on this one.."_

_As we took in all that the chief said, I noticed as well that Star was crying now, and Robin was trying to quietly calm her down, but much to his dismay was having very little success this close to the poor girl's body, especially as the chief talked about it. Star couldn't understand the cruel actions of the people on our planet, and I wished desperately that she didn't have to._

_Rubbing Star's back as she continued to sob into his shoulder, Robin spoke to the chief again. "Raven heard a scream sir, then she saw this I guess," he motioned to the scene of the girl, in the beautiful white dress that I'd seen her in, lying in the middle of the pool of deep red blood with his free hand, "in a premonition.. when the alarm went off at the tower, it was triggered by something outside a window near Raven's room. If my suspicions are correct, then it's all linked, and someone knew what Raven had seen, or at least that she had seen something, and thought it might have been something incriminating. Please talk with Raven, I have to make sure my other teammate is alright, excuse me." Robin finished speaking and guided Starfire, who was even more of a mess now, or so it seemed, away into the light of a street lamp about a hundred yards away. _

_Feeling very alone, in every sense of the word, I turned to face the chief again, "Sir, do you have any information yet, who she is maybe?" I asked, unsure of what I was doing or asking, let alone if it was the right thing to do or ask. _

_"Yes we do, Raven, are you okay will all this? Can you handle it?" He questioned me, appropriately worried about telling a young woman, or the teen girl that he probably saw me as, all the details of a rape and murder when she was all alone. It wasn't only evident in the way he asked, but I was already tapping into his thoughts with my powers as well. I didn't want him to leave anything out, even if the reasons why he worried, and why he may edit what he told me, held very very true. I was scared._

_"No, I'm not okay will this, she didn't deserve to be raped or murdered, especially not like this, no one deserves this. And she's so young, and whoever did this is still running around the streets of our city, and I'm definitely not okay with that. But yes I can handle it Chief, so please tell me what you know, because I'll do whatever I can, cause if you don't mind, I want to catch this bastard and bring him in, and I know the rest of our team feels the same, granted, Starfire's not used to the violence of our world yet, this was a first for her, for all of us."_

_The Chief nodded. 'She's strong, and I like the way she thinks, but she's still so young, and well she's a she. That makes this a dangerous case that I'm not willing to dump on her or the Teen Titans yet. But I will give her the information we have so far, maybe she can help, with her premonition things,' I heard him think. I was glad my powers had matured to let me enter peoples' mind without their knowledge, but I felt slightly guilty for invading. "And we will bring him in. Alright, follow me then." he said allowed this time. And I did, only glancing briefly at Starfire and Robin who were still bathed in the light cast by the street lamp while the spoke in hushed voices. _

_We walked into the back of one of the specialized vans owned by the force. There were people typing away at computers, and others already running tests and taking notes, while the others outside took care of the crime scene. They really weren't wasting anytime. I admired their speed and dedication, all here working swiftly as the pitch black dead of night changed into the small gray hours of the morning. Maybe they would bring in this girl's killer, maybe they didn't need us after all, Jump City PD had really improved over the years. I continued to follow the Chief to a cork board with papers tacked to it. Someone walked up behind me, and I turned quickly to see a woman holding another paper, she tried to smile at me, but smiles didn't come easy at a time like this. The woman leaned into the board and jabbed a tack into a corner of the sheet and went back to work. The Chief used my arm to somewhat gently pull me to a spot that was more out of the way. Then he pointed to a paper on the board, and explained what it meant, even though most of the information on the board was self explanatory. "She is.. Jacklyn May Thompson. She was born in December of '93 making her, what, 15? She lived here in Jump City, on the other side of town though.." he pointed to an address, one I recognized vaguely, I knew that part of town at least, "however she attended a high end advanced school in New York. Um, her parents are Nick and Alexandra Thompson, still married, he's a doctor, she's a lawyer. Jacklyn's closest friends all seem to be kids from her school, she was dating a kid from her school too," he paused, his thoughts being suspicious of the boyfriend. Addressing the team of officers, agents and investigators within earshot, he asked, "do we know anything about the boyfriend yet? Even a first name?" His question was returned with silence, except for the rapid clicking of fingers on computer keys. "COME ON! Find me something on the boyfriend!" he demanded, walking towards the computer screens briefly scanning the information on the screens over the annalists' shoulders. He reached the last person at the row of computers, right as they clicked to open a new file on their computer, but as the file opened, the electricity in the van failed. First, the monitors when blank and then the lights shut off. Then, everything became complete chaos, people talking, shouting over each other, checking wires, flipping switches, it was all a mess. _

_"What's going on!?! WHAT HAPPENED?!?" The Chief sounded just as confused as I was as he yelled to be heard, but he also sounded a whole hell of a lot angrier. The person who had been sitting at the end of the row, trying to open a file when the power cut off walked up to the Chief, his expression full of nerves and suspicion. I dropped my mind link to the Chief, and quickly established a connection with this man's mind, his tag told me his name was Patrick. _

_"Sir." He addressed the chief, though he was blatantly studying me. _

_"Yes?"_

_"I was about to open a website for some sort of organization, she didn't appear to be a part of it, though her full name showed up in it in a search. It didn't look a study group kind of thing, Sir, it was called 'ACE', and it was entirely different, really, well, suspicious," Patrick's thoughts confirmed he was telling the truth, "ACE looked dangerous on the site Sir."_

_"Hm," the Chief nodded, he suspected something as well, I noted as I switched back to his thoughts._

_"Also Sir, I saw someone moving outside the van, I think they may have cut our hard power lines," Patrick said, while leaning in to the Chief, his voice a loud whisper. _

_"WHAT!" The Chief's eyes widened. "Someone check all the power ties and lines outside the vans! NOW!" He screamed, and someone ran out the back of the van. I immediately dropped my connection to Patrick and tapped into the Chief's mind once again. I was getting tired from alternating back and forth, and generating connections to their minds. 'He might be out there still! The damn killer might be out there watching us!' I couldn't hold myself in his head long enough to hear anymore of his thoughts before the Chief turned to me and told me he needed to get the body, and most of his people out of here and back to the JCPD building. "Raven, we need to hurry, my team needs computers, and we need to get off the street, the city is waking up. You understand. We'll keep your team updated, but for now you all need to keep out of the way." He ordered, handling his gun in it's holster as he ran out of the van barking orders at people. _

_I walked out of the van and weaved my way through people back to the body, I wanted one more look. The chaos and mayhem continued around me as I stared down at the young, broken body. She had smooth brown that fell just below her chest, the back and side of which was caked in blood from the entry and exit wounds of the bullet, but the front remained mostly dry as it framed her still face. She had beautiful features I realized as I tried to imagine what she would look like when she wasn't surrounded by blood, when she was smiling. She was tall and slender, and her dress was form fitting, with simple straps running over her shoulders, while the length of the dress went down to an inch or two above her knees. I felt sick seeing the cuts and bruises on her skin again, and all the blood, and then, I felt even worse knowing her parents would see them, along with the bullet wounds as well. She had a beautiful delicate silver bracelet on her left wrist with a heart charm connected to it. The letters JMT were carved on the first side, and I quickly remembered her name was Jacklyn May Thompson, these were her initials. I knelt down by her side to look at the charm closely, then being careful not to physically touch anything I used a black aura to delicately and discreetly flip the heart charm over, and I found the initials WC engraved on it. I wondered if the Chief had seen this, or at least heard about it, thinking maybe it would help with finding the boyfriends name. And then I spotted something I hadn't seen before. There was the thinnest, most delicate silver chain around her neck, with another charm. The charm had slid around to the side of the chain, and was now laying in the puddle of blood, just like it's wearer. But this charm wasn't shaped like a heart, this charm was shaped like the Ace of Spades, and it was made of a shiny black stone. ACE, I thought. _

_I was staring at the charm so absorbed in my thoughts that I never saw the dark eyes staring at me from the shadows, but someone else did and their shouts and the commotion that ensued pulled me out of my thoughts, and I started listening in on the Chief's to figure out what was going on. _

_'He was still here! That sick bastard was still here! Watching us! Raven... he was just staring at her, she might be in danger still. Where is she? I can't believe he was still here! DAMN IT! Where's the search team? Why the hell didn't they find him? How could we not know he was still here!? How'd he get past this many people? How did he go unnoticed!' Understanding what'd I'd missed, and realizing that the Chief's thoughts were pretty much just going in circles now, I retreated from his mind to conserve my energy. _

_I looked from the Chief back to the body, which was now hurriedly being moved, and I quickly memorized the look of the charm on her necklace, and wondered if she had put it on willingly, knowing what was coming, or if someone else had put it around her neck, and she had no idea what was going to happen. As the body was moved out of sight, and the vans were packed up, I looked around to find Robin and Star, but they weren't standing under the streetlight anymore, and that was a little frightening. _

_"Chief, where are Starfire and Robin?" I entreated as he ordered his men around and packed up one of the vans._

_"I sent them home," his voice was slightly annoyed and his temper was much shorter now that things weren't going as well as he had thought, "your girlfriend couldn't stop crying and kept saying she wanted to go home," I sighed as he spoke, "you'll have to come with us until one of the officers or agents can drive you back home, or you'll have to stay the night at the barracks. It's safe there, and it'd be easier to keep an eye on you if you're there."_

_I was about to tell him that no one needed to keep an eye on me, when I heard two loud shots and the Chief tackled me to the ground. Between the pain in my arm, just below my shoulder and the pain I felt in my chest that was making it harder and harder to breathe I couldn't figure out what was happening. I groaned when I realized that I didn't have enough energy to listen in on anyone else's thoughts to figure it out, and the searing pain and shouting and movement around me made it too hard to hear my own thoughts as everything blurred and faded._

My eyes flew open and i stifled a gasp as i woke up. Seeing a green arm resting on the center console that was right in front of my face because of how I was laying in the passenger seat helped me relax a little bit.

"You alright Rae?" Beast Boy asked as I rolled onto my back in the seat.

"Fine, just dreaming about it again.." I grumbled. I lifted up the sleeve of my tee shirt and looked at my arm where the pain had been in my dream, rubbing the faint little scar, I admired my body's work from healing myself; not too shabby.

"It's only been a couple days Raven," Beast Boys voice started out comforting but then turned into a more menacing sound, "once we catch this son of a bitch, you'll be able to sleep easier, just like Rob said." I just looked out the window, these were not the circumstances under which i wanted to be going on a road trip with Beast Boy.. not the circumstances at all.


End file.
